UFC 150: Frankie Edgar was not robbed against Ben Henderson

The term “robbery” is about like the term “legend” when it comes to MMA fans in that both terms get thrown around entirely too much. The main event of UFC 150 on Saturday night was no different when the decision was announced and Ben Henderson retained his UFC lightweight title via split decision in what an extremely close fight that was difficult to judge against Frankie Edgar.

Fights that could arguably go to either fighter are not robberies. I scored the fight a draw, but if the judges did that fickle MMA fans would be complaining about that, so I suppose it’s a no win situation for the judges. Trust me, I definitely call them out when I think they are wrong and it does happen more often than I care to admit. UFC middleweight Fabio Maldonado should have gotten the nod twice but has come out on the losing end on both occasions. Riki Fukuda losing a decision against Nick Ring at UFC 127 was a robbery. I know that stats only tell a little bit of the story, but I think Fightmetric is fairly accurate so let’s take a look at the stats from Saturday night:

I think most sane people had the fight scored one round apiece after two rounds so we’ll start with the third round. However, you can see the stats have round two pretty darn close as well. Two strikes is the difference in the ENTIRE round(third round) between both fighters. Henderson threw four more strikes than Edgar. Then we get into semantics about what counts more, a leg kick, body kick, or jabs to the face. If there was ever a 10-10 round, that was it.

Round four saw Henderson turn the tables and out land Edgar by two significant strikes, but Edgar had a takedown that he didn’t do much with and is credited with a submission attempt that was never close to being a threat to stopping Henderson in my opinion.

Round five saw Edgar with the clear edge in significant strikes landed, and he was the busier fighter throwing ten more strikes than Henderson.

So just by looking at the stats you can tell that this was a razor close fight. I think the biggest difference was that the significant strikes that Henderson threw and landed seemed to have more effect on Edgar than vice versa. Besides the punch that dropped Henderson in the second round, and a right hand that snapped Henderson’s head back in round 4, I can’t think of many other instances where he did any type of damage.

Edgar has had four or five fights like this where he uses a ton of movement and lands strikes that have little to no effect on opponents which have resulted in very close fights. If anything, it’s probably one of the main reasons why UFC President Dana White has been begging him to move down to the featherweight division to compete against guys more his size. The scary part about that is that the champion Jose Aldo will have a significant size advantage on Edgar as well if they ever fight.

So fans and pundits, please take a step back and think about things for a bit. This fight could have gone either way three rounds to two, or arguably could have been a draw. People would have been angry with all of those outcomes, so just realize that the fight wasn’t a robbery by any stretch of the imagination. It was just a competitive fight that was extremely close in all facets.

The thought that Bens strikes “appeared” to have more impact than Frankie’s when he was the only one knocked down, and had his head stung back on numerous occasions (not to mention began to back peddle as the fight wore on) baffles me a little bit. Frankie out landed Ben, had more submission attempts, had the only knockdown, had the only takedowns, and finished the fight better than Ben. The strikes were not the only story of this match up.

After checking 7 or 8 sites that conducted PBP I couldn’t find one that scored it for Ben (Sherdog had one draw in its panel). The Sherdog Poll on the fight is at 8000 and counting, and it is overwhelmingly in favor of Frankie (57% Edgar 16% draw 27% Ben atm).

The term robbery is a bit of an overstatement when describing the decision, but the wrong guy walked away with the belt. The numbers, the fans, the “experts” (eventhough they might not all agree), all point to that reality.

Kelvin Hunt

He outstruck him by 5 strikes…and again most of those where point strikes…the submission attempts were never really close…he did nothing with the takedowns…

It’s not about who finished the fight better…it’s who wins each round…and as I pointed out…if you go by each round…the fight could have gone either way… most people had the fight 48-47 one way or the other…with the third round being the determining factor…and again…that round was basically a dead heat.

Using polls as an argument doesn’t really do much sense those fans voting probably didn’t watch the fight objectively…any round that’s close will goto the guy they are rooting for…

It was no where near a robbery…which was the point of the post here :)

Dupond

logic used in this article is absolutely bogus. FRANKIE WAS ROBBED

Adnan

people seem to forget that edgar dropped henderson twice … FRANKIE WAS ROBBED. And for crying out loud, what did henderson do to deserve that belt ?

Kelvin Hunt

feel free to point out what you disagree with…

About Kelvin Hunt

Kelvin is a father and former collegiate baseball player with a degree in physical education from UNC-Pembroke. He's an avid MMA fan that has been writing about the sport since 2008 through various outlets. His favorite fighter is Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira due to the heart he has displayed throughout his legendary MMA career. In his spare time (there is none with three kids), he likes to work out and also likes to follow college football recruiting. You can email him at kelvinhunt@hotmail.com and you can follow him on twitter at @KelvinHuntMMA